


How Far

by avampireandhercupcake



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 21:06:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6536338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avampireandhercupcake/pseuds/avampireandhercupcake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After years of marriage, changes happen and Cat distances herself from Kara.  Eventually, Kara can't take it anymore.  Married Supercat, angsty, happy ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Far

 

It was like she couldn’t even hear her.

 

Even sitting across their living room on the couch, Cat seemed to be deaf to Kara when she pleaded with her to listen.  Kara stood in the corner in the kitchen watching Cat make dinner, begging her to talk to her, to say anything.  When Kara lay on her side on their bed, watching Cat stare at the ceiling and asked her to throw her a bone, Cat didn’t have anything to say anymore.

 

A lot of things had happened in the last few months:  Carter left for college, Kara turned thirty, Katherine passed away.  Kara knew it was a ridiculous amount for her wife to take in, but each passing day seemed to drag Cat further away from her.  And the worst part was that Cat didn’t seem to have any interest in fighting back.

 

Kara desperately called Dr. Shuman over and over for help, but she always hit the same doctor-patient confidentiality brick wall.  Each time she got that same response she nearly smashed her phone.  All the emergency Lexapro in the world wasn’t getting through to Cat.

 

Every time Kara watched a plane fly by or a train speed across downtown, she sighed.

 

“When’s this going to end, Cat?” she asked one night.

 

“There’s no this, Kara.”

 

Kara groaned.  “ _This_ , is you never letting me into your mind.  This is you alienating me whenever I want to know what’s going on with you.  This is me feeling like you’ve built up more walls around your heart than there were when I was your assistant.  This is me wondering if you even care...if I’m here or not.”

 

“We’re married, dear.  Isn’t that enough?” Cat responded atonally.  

 

“It was enough, once,” Kara acknowledged.  “But that’s when we were partners.  When you were my best friend.  Now, it’s like you’re not even trying.”

 

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Cat muttered, and took out her phone to look at emails.

 

Kara tilted her head sadly and swallowed.  

 

“I think I need to go,” she stated blankly.  

 

“Go, Kiera?” Cat asked, disinterestedly.

 

“Did you just call me Kiera?” Kara gasped softly.

 

Cat rolled her eyes.  “You know what I meant, Kara.”

 

Kara couldn’t believe what was happening.  “Well yes, go.  Where I go, and how long I’m gone?  That’s going to be up to you,” Kara finished.

 

Cat didn’t move.  Kara’s heart broke.

 

“Goodbye Cat,” she said, and with one last desperate look, walked out of the house, leaving her wife and the life she made for herself behind.

 

* * *

 

Alex played with her sister’s long hair as they sat next to each other on the cold metallic table in her DEO lab.  

 

“I had no idea things were this bad, Kara.  I knew you were having problems but you never told me you were getting ready to leave her.”

 

“I wasn’t, not really.  But I kept watching planes and thinking about the people escaping National City and going somewhere nicer...and I felt trapped, so I wanted to escape too.  I couldn’t keep living there with the way it was,” Kara tried to explain.

 

“You know that most of them aren’t going anywhere particularly nice,” Alex joked.

 

Kara chuckled.  She probably wouldn’t take well to anyone else’s brand of humor right now, but her sister could cheer her up every time.

 

“What did you tell her?” Alex asked carefully.

 

“I told her that I was just going to go.  And she would decide where we go from here,” Kara revealed.

 

Alex gently took Kara’s hand and rubbed circles on the back.

 

“Do you think this is over, Kara?” she questioned.

 

Choking back a sob, Kara replied, “I hope not.”

 

Alex took her sister into a tight embrace and felt Kara’s tears through her shirt.  It was enough to make her cry a little bit for Kara too.  It wasn’t easy to see someone she loved watch her world be destroyed yet again.

 

* * *

 

“Wick!”

 

After all of these years, Cat still didn’t feel the need to learn or use Winn’s correct name.  He never really cared then, and he didn’t care now.  All he wanted was to go into his boss’s office, find out what she needed, and then get out, as quickly as possible.

 

“Yes, Ms. Grant.”

 

“Find me Mr. Olsen, I have input for the leisure section.”

 

Winn frowned.  “Where’s Laura?”  Cat’s assistant of the last six months, Laura, was a fairly competent assistant, though nobody thus far measured up to Kara’s standards.  

 

For her part, Kara had been promoted to junior editor shortly after their engagement.  Cat had said that as valuable as Kara had been to her and how happy Kara was with the arrangement, the power balance between boss and assistant was too uncomfortable for Cat to have with her fiancee.  Two years ago, Kara became a senior editor.

 

“Well she’s not in front of me and you are, so if you could just do what I’ve asked of you, that would be quite sufficient without the running commentary,” Cat replied, waving him away.

 

Winn turned and rolled his eyes where his boss couldn’t see them, but went to retrieve James.

 

The longtime art director appeared a minute later with his prints from the leisure section.  “Ms. Grant,” he acknowledged her, sliding the prints across her desk.

 

“Hmm,” she returned, and scanned over them.  “Yes, these are good, but this is out of place.  It’s not a bad shot, but move it to a contents page or something.  And this is trash.  Who took this one?”

 

“Oh, that...that’s one of the interns.”

 

“Well, fire him then.”

 

“Are you sure Ms. Grant?  He’s really not bad.  He took some of these other ones too.  Also...he’s the one your son asked you to bring on,” James explained.

 

“Oh...Carter’s friend.  Okay, definitely don’t fire him then,” Cat sighed.  “Alright, bring it into editing when you’re through.”

 

“Well that’s not going to get done today,” James contended.  “Kara isn’t here.  You...know that right?”

 

Cat looked at him strangely, as the faint memory of Kara’s footsteps out their front door returned to her.  “Yes.  Of course I know that.  Just take it to another editor, you two aren’t attached at the hip.”

 

James regarded her carefully, sure that something he didn’t know about was amiss, but he let it go and left.

 

* * *

 

Kara stayed by her sister’s side most of that day.  A couple of texts came in, general concern from Winn and slightly more unnerving questions about her and Cat from James.  Unwilling to talk about the situation with any more people, she replied with a story about Eliza being sick.  The excuse would work for the next couple of days as long as they didn’t cross-examine Alex.

 

She was snacking on potato chips when Vasquez reported unknown alien activity over the Northern California forests.  J’onn began assembling a task force and Alex started gathering equipment.

 

“Why don’t you just let me go take care of it?” Kara appeared next to Alex.

 

“It’s a single organism and the radar is picking up very little power.  The humans can handle it,” Alex replied, smiling at Kara.

 

“I know you can!  But like, you have me right here.  You’re not pulling me away from Catco or anything.  Why not use me?”  Kara turned to J’onn.  “It’ll be like I’m one of your full time agents.  And besides, I’m bored.”

 

J’onn considered it, and shrugged.  “We’ll be there for backup, Supergirl.”

 

Kara grinned and made for the exit to take off.

 

* * *

 

When she landed through a clearing in the forest, Alex’s voice rang in from her communicator.  “Do you hear me, Supergirl?”

 

“Loud and clear,” Kara responded.

 

“Ten four.  We’re at an ETA of 20 minutes.  We’ll track your coordinates.  Good luck.”

 

Kara scanned the area with x-ray vision and found a strange body crouching behind a large rock.  She launched herself up into the trees and landed on the other side.  The alien was small and looked relatively non-threatening.

 

“Who are you?” she asked, confidence in her voice.

 

Suddenly, the small non-threatening alien grew to five times its size and began to glow red.  It growled and bared sharp teeth.

 

Kara gulped nervously but was ready to fight.  She jumped off the ground and swung her fist and…

 

FWOOP.

 

The alien swatted at her and it sent her flying.  Not in the good, controlled sense.  It was more like falling up and sideways.  She soared past the clouds before she finally arced back down.

 

Okay, maybe she needed some backup.

 

She reached the ground with a huge thud.  Kara was not uninjured.  Her back throbbed and it seemed to be difficult to breathe.

 

What was more scary was that she had no idea where she was now.

 

She was still in the woods, but the woods went on for thousands of miles.  There was no telling where she was.  Luckily the communicator had the GPS system that would…

 

_Shit._

 

Whether it was in the swat or in the landing, the communicator had shattered.  She couldn’t talk to Alex and Alex couldn’t find her.  She’d have to find her way back herself.

 

Kara moaned in pain all the way to her feet.  Wobbly, she tried to launch herself back into flight but screamed out in agony before she could do it.

 

The situation went from bad to worse.

 

Breathing heavily and looking around desperately for an answer, Kara remembered the ring on her finger.

 

She remembered the weeks before her wedding when Cat pointed out that they had to pick out rings.  Kara had thought about how Cat always fussed over her safety as Supergirl, from the second Kara admitted it to her (after a long speech about how she never had her fooled.)   And so Kara talked to Alex and they collaborated on two gold wedding bands with a telepathy inspired ability.  Whenever one of them wrapped their hand fully around the ring, the other person would be able to feel the ring grow tighter.  Sometimes Cat did it when she was away on business and Kara would feel it and smile when she was lying in bed without her wife.  And Kara promised if she was ever in trouble, she would do it so that Cat would know.

 

Well, this was trouble.  Kara could only hope Cat could wake up from her morose extended daydream long enough to feel it.  Or that Cat hadn’t already spelled out the end and taken off her ring.

 

* * *

 

 

“Supergirl?  Supergirl!  We can’t track your coordinates.  Where are you?  Supergirl?”  Alex continually yelled into the communicator, but got nothing but radio silence.  She and her team were hovering over Kara’s last known location but found neither alien was there.

 

“Damnit,” Alex swore under her breath.  “Alright, canvas the area,” she yelled out to the pilot and her agents.

 

Alex felt her cell phone vibrate in her pants pocket.  She grunted as she dug around for the phone to answer it.  She read “Cat Grant” on the screen.  She barely wanted to answer it, especially not at a time like this, but she knew the woman wouldn’t stop just because she didn’t answer the first time.

 

“You’re the last person I want to hear from right now, Grant,” Alex growled into the phone.

 

“Lovely to speak with you too, Agent Danvers.  I need to talk to you about Kara.”

 

“That’s funny, because Kara’s already talked to me plenty about you,” Alex began.

 

“And I’m sure you have questions, yes yes.  Another time.  My wife is in trouble.  You need to go find her,” Cat urged.

 

“And how do you know what Kara’s even up to?”

 

“Remember your wedding gift to us?”  Cat prompted.

 

Alex did.  She was really rather proud of the finished product when she made those rings.  “Did Kara contact you?”

 

“Yes.  And not particularly gently.  I think I might need this finger amputated,” Cat sighed dramatically.

 

Alex ignored the act.  “Are you at Catco?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Don’t move,” Alex commanded.

 

“Why?”

 

“Don’t.  Move.  An agent will be with you shortly.”

 

“You sound like an automated phone message,” Cat began, but Alex had already hung up.

 

Alex switched back to her communicator.  “Come in, Vasquez.”

 

“Go,” she answered.

 

“I need you to rush to the Catco building.  Take Ms. Grant’s wedding ring and scan it on the DEO’s interface.  We’re going to get coordinates to Kara.”

 

“Copy.”

 

* * *

 

Cat’s finger felt so weightless.  The smooth gold of her wedding band hadn’t been absent since the day she married Kara.  Not to shower, not to sleep, not ever.  She knew about the feature on her ring that could transmit touch between the two of them; she didn’t know the touches could be GPS located.  It would feel like an invasion of privacy if it didn’t just possibly save her wife’s life.

 

She waited in the DEO (there was no way that agent was going to take her ring and not her) for the group to return.  Vasquez would not allow her to watch or listen to what was happening, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to, in case the worst happened.

 

Finally, the man she still didn’t know as anything other than Agent Mulder came through the doors and Cat’s heart raced waiting for anyone to follow.  

 

She saw the blue and red before anything else.  

 

Kara limped in, leaning heavily on her sister.  Cat allowed herself to breathe again.

 

Their eyes met.  “Kara,” Cat began.

 

Kara looked at Alex, and Alex nodded, slipping her arm out from under Kara’s.  Kara shuffled over to stand just before Cat.   Cat looked up into Kara’s teary eyes.

 

“I left the house.  I left Catco.  I didn’t know how far I’d have to go.  Did I go far enough now, Cat?  Do you understand how much I need you yet?”

 

Cat reached up her arms and brought her face to Kara’s, feeling her warmth.  Then she captured Kara’s lips and kissed her, perhaps a little too needy considering the eyes on them, but Kara didn’t let her go.

 

When they parted, Cat apologized.  “I’m so sorry Kara.  Everything got to me and I pushed away the one person I thought would put up with it.  But everyone has their breaking point and I just...broke you.  That’s not what being married is about.”

 

“We have to make this work, Cat.  It’ll kill me if we don’t.”

 

“We’re going to make it work.  We’re going to fight.  Because I love you more than words can express...I can think of other ways to express it though, if you catch my drift?”  Cat raised an eyebrow.  Kara laughed and kissed her.

 

“Ugh, gross!” Alex yelled at them.

 


End file.
